YMMV / Perfect Match

• Alternative Character Interpretation: Depending on your choice in the final conversation with Cecile, she can either be just as gleefully evil as Rowan or regrets her actions but thinks that she went too far to turn back.
• Base-Breaking Character:
  • Alana is the biggest one. Her fans think that she is a fun and helpful wildcard while her detractors absolutely hate how she bragged about breaking Damien's heart. The fact that she betrayed the group by turning them over to Eros and return to rescue only Damien breaks the base even further with people who still sympathetic with her, those who jump from love to hate and those who hate her all along think that this just cements into The Scrappy. And that also not mentioning the Premium option to let her rejoin your group and her reappearance in Book 2 regardless of your choice as well as being a potential Love Interest.
  • Nadia Park. She is either cute, sweet, and funny, or overly obnoxious and dramatic.
  • Sloane Washington. Her fans like her for her adorkable personality, intelligence, understanding of social anxiety, and determination to do as much as possible despite her limitations. They also express their disappointment that her storyline and potential for character development are severely sidelined by Pixelberry's bias against female love interests by having other characters steal her limelight. Her detractors think she's a Ditzy Genius who's naïve to danger and that her social anxiety isn't portrayed realistically.
  • Damien Nazario. His fans view him as a cautious friend/love interest who has your best interests at heart. His detractors view him as an over-the-top cynic who looks for the bad in every situation and can only have fun if there's alcohol involved. It doesn't help that he treated Hayden and Steve rather poorly throughout the first half of the story and never properly apologized to them even after knowing that they're Good All Along.
  • Harley. There are some players who like them for openly flirting with Kai while other players despise them for being a psychotic criminal who gleefully acts on Eros' behalf. When Cecile alters their programming, essentially killing them, players are split between being furious at Cecile or rejoicing that Harley is gone.
• Broken Base:
  • The reveal that Damien was swapped place with Dames during the escape from Eros is highly controversial in the fandom. Some are relieved that the person they interacted with and potentially chose to romance for the majority of the first book is the "real" Damien while others highly derided this twist for turning a Premium Choice to have sex with Damien into a Bed Trick (along the writers's callous treatment of the situation). Others bemoan the wasted potential of having Damien to be a robot the entire time.
  • The formula for Book 2. Much of Book 2 revolves around the protagonists plotting a move against Eros, only to be captured or humiliated. Some argue that this makes the plot boring and formulaic, as well as making the protagonists look weak. Others argue that it portrays Eros as competent villains who always find a way to stay one step ahead.
  • People are split as to whether or not the creators made the right decision in ending the story after two books. One group believes that there's more of the story to tell given that Book 2 ends with Khaan and Sloane turning Eros in a different direction and Keegan (Kai's robot duplicate) leading a group called "The Unity of Liberated Matches". Another group believes that the story had a satisfying conclusion and that any unanswered questions are left up to player interpretation, and some point out that the story was beginning to get repetitive and that the creators were wise to end it when they did.
• Captain Obvious Reveal: Hayden and Steve are robots. Everyone already expected this twist based on the cover art and the first chapter.
• Diagnosed by the Audience: Sloane’s social awkwardness, inability to understand sarcasm, and obsessive interest in technology make some fans believe that she may be on the autism spectrum.
• Ensemble Dark Horse:
  • Hayden's optional dog Dipper is this for how cute it looks and the hilarious interaction it has with the cast. A lot of fans replay the book just to swap Hayden's personality to Animal Lover in order to get the dog to be involved.
  • For that matter, the guard who treated Dipper very well after the main characters's capture by Eros is also beloved as well, with some declare that he can't be a bad person if he loves Dipper.
  • Several players have voiced that they are starting to prefer Dames over Damien due to him being more emotional and friendly, as well as feeling sympathetic for him. Even people who aren't romancing Damien have stated that he seems easier to get along with and feel sympathetic for him as well.
• Fan-Preferred Couple:
  • Outside of the three main Love Interest, fans also ship Kai with Alana and Cecile. However, both of these ships' popularity took a huge hit with Alana's Sixth Ranger Traitor action, though it fired up again with her reappearance in Book 2, and officially becoming an LI and Cecile slapping Damien when he was captive.
  • Many fans also ship Sloane and Khaan together because of the massive amount of Ship Tease between them. It's possible to put them together in game if you are dating neither of them.
• Fans Prefer the New Her: The fandom all rally behind Damien's new character design in Book 2 that includes a beard despite it being the result of his capture by Eros.
• Franchise Original Sin: This is the Choices book that introduced the concept of "gender-customizable love interests", a concept which has gotten more scrutiny over the years, due to them being less developed than non-customizable love interests by default. However, it's much more tolerable here, since Hayden's personality is customizable as well (opening up plenty of unique dialogue options), and Kai meets them through a dating service, which is a completely understandable in-universe explanation for why their gender is customizable. Furthermore, there are still other love interests available (both male and female, regardless of Hayden's gender) if you choose not to be with Hayden (or, alternatively, you can be in a polyamorous relationship with Hayden and at least one other love interest). Compare this with Choices stories released as little as two or three years later, where the gender-customizable love interest is the only love interest, their personality is watered down to fit both male and female options, despite them still acting male-coded in some cases (i.e. Mayor Dixon from Baby Bump and Kit Jackson from Untameable), there's little to no in-universe justification for them being gender-customizable, and some stories make it so that the main character ends up with them, no matter what. Additionally, some stories even restrict both the main character's and the love interest's sexual preferences to "exclusively the gender of the love interest/main character", going so far as to make it so any character the main character can flirt with (even if they can't end up with them) is always the same gender as the love interest, thereby denying the option of bisexuality in a series of stories where Everyone Is Bi is usually the rule, rather than the exception.
• Growing the Beard: Most of the fandom feels that the book got much better and exciting after the Robotic Reveal and the Fugitive Arc.
• I Knew It!: Most people could tell by the cover that Hayden would have a Robotic Reveal. It got even more obvious as the story progressed.
• Narm: The Berlin safehouse looks like a quaint cottage befitting a fantasy-themed tourist attraction despite its location on the outskirts of Berlin, one of the most modern and urbanized areas in the world.
• One True Pairing: Whatever you do, do NOT break up Steve/Nadia or everyone will come at your throat.
• Rescued from the Scrappy Heap:
  • Sloane initially came across as a weird nerd stereotype, rubbing on the readers as the writers trying too hard to make her Adorkable and instead being incredibly ignorant on human interaction. Once the truth is revealed and she proves to be perfectly capable of surviving on her own, fans started to see her in a new light, with some accepting her as a Love Interest, or just a good friend.
  • Most of the readers initially find Nadia annoying and vapid, making it hard to feel bad for her whenever a dramatic situation happens to her. Her character development after the discovery of Eros's true nature has at least redeemed her to a Base-Breaking Character.
• Rewatch Bonus: A lot of scenes take on a new meaning upon replaying them if you know about Eros's true nature as well as Hayden's and Damien's Robotic Reveal.
• Shocking Moments: Hayden and Damien's Robotic Reveal, especially the latter for being a truly shocking and surprise twist that worth several replay of the book.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character:
  • Steve's father - handler, completely disappears from the story after the Robotic Reveal despite the immense potential and interaction that he can bring. At the very least, he could be a good antagonist along with Cecile and Rowan.
  • According to this blog post, Sloane's potential to be a great character in her own right has been derailed by other characters taking center stage on her scenes, whether free or premium.
  • Despite being the CEO of Eros, Rowan West barely makes an appearance and delegates most of his villainous tasks to Cecile.
• Values Resonance: The theme of unethical use of AI and the corrupted corporation that would use them to replace humans is especially more relevant in 2023 than it was in 2018, with the advance of AI and unlicensed use of creative work to feed them.